hip
and a "gee-up" all the time wouldn't be the type for me.'

She laughed gain, but shakily. There was an appeal in her voice.

'Colin, you've told me a lot about breaking in young horses, and how
patient one has to be with them. Be patient with me.... Now, I'll try
and answer your question--truthfully. I only know in a very confused
sort of way WHY I want to marry you.... I think you must understand
what a lonely sort of life I've led, really--and what a dreadful muddle
I've made of it--Well, I've told you how I hated everything. And though
I can laugh, and be interested, too, in Molly Gaverick's way of looking
at things, and in her determination not "to be out of the swim"--I was
just as determined myself, when I had the mood to be in it--and though
one side of me hankers after the push and the struggle and the
worldliness--yet the other side of me revolts against it, and longs to
be washed clean of all the sordid social grime. There! I've felt about
marrying you that it would be a new baptism into a bigger, fresher,
purer life--do you see?'

'Yes--I see.' His tone was doubtful. 'You've tried it before--that idea
of bigger interests--a different kind of life--in other ways, Biddy,
haven't you?'

'Oh! in ever so many ways. Of course, that wasn't only in the sense of
love--hero worship, you know. It was the schemes, ideas, plans for
living in the higher part of one. Tolstoy, Prentice Mulford--that kind
of thing.... Colin, you blame me for not GIVING; yet, all my life, I've
been blamed for giving too freely.'

'For giving too freely!' He repeated sharply.

'You mustn't misunderstand me. I said it hadn't only to do with men
making love to me--my ideas about a different life. It was my general
attitude--expecting to meet something great and being disappointed....
Of course, I've suffered--suffered horribly--in my heart--in my pride.
And I've often found that my attitude towards things brought me into
difficulties. The average person, if it's a man--supposes that because
one has such ideas one must be a kind of abandoned creature. And, if
it's a woman, that one has some mean, ulterior motive. I've always
seemed to be looking for largeness and finding only what was small. You
attracted me because you're like nature--big, simple, elemental.'

'Now, what the deuce do you mean by elemental?'

'Primal, unadulterated--closer to the heart of life and nature. It's a
sort of cosmic quality. You are large--your surroundings